Reticent
by Ghost of Harrenhal
Summary: Set in 7x12, Donna and Harvey share a few drinks and listen to his father's records. Important context: during a flashback to Harvey's childhood in this episode, Gordon's band is playing a song called "Boppin' with Donna".


"Remember when-"

"I do."

"You didn't let me finish."

She chuckles, looks over at him with an eyebrow raised cockily "Really?"

Her smugness stirs something beneath his chest, a warmth, a momentum only she can provoke. It makes him feel guilty, the intimacy and precision in the way she affects him, dangerous. He swallows it down, dry and thick. Feigns indifference he figures she sees right through.

He rolls his eyes, "Sure, what was I saying?"

"You were going to ask if I remember another time we heard this song," there's no tease in it but perhaps a little nostalgia, she understands his resistance to spar, she always understands.

He nods unspoken gratitude even though their agreements are supposed to be entirely elusive. A tired sighs pours out of him feeling the weight of their recent misunderstandings then, like fifty pounds sitting on his chest, stealing his breath. He forces himself to shake it off "With my dad," he meant to distract from the choking way he thinks about her now, in these increasingly rare moments, like the two of them, as a unit, are fading, but it outs in a whisper like it is holy. In some ways, he figures it is.

"With your dad," She agrees quietly, lovingly, a reflection of the sanctity in his voice refracted and divided like light into purer, more colorful sentiment.

She has always been better at this than he, better at feeling his feelings.

The record gasps and stops, saddling them with imperfect silence, the hum of the city, ghosts and blurred edges. Harvey reaches over and lifts the needle before it can sing again.

He leans back into the cushions, rolls his wrist until the amber in his tumbler spirals like a drain. His mind swirls and sinks with it, struck by a memory.

"First time you heard it, right?" He asks almost sweetly; halting the swirl by rolling the glass the other way he turns to her slowly.

Past blends into present, he blames the scotch for seeing two of her overlapped. One exists minus ten years with longer hair and brighter clothes, bangs and a lot less complication; the other has been wearing black for the last week and hasn't made him coffee in a year.

He wonders who he would pick, fleetingly; knows without a doubt he would choose her now, whenever now is. The most important thing has always been that she stays.

Donna smiles, "Yeah, and he had the brass to say it was for me," She reminisces, leaning forward. She pours herself another dose. The crystalline sound of the bottle touching the edge of glass ricochets across empty space prettily; their theme song.

"It is your name in the title," Harvey argues with faux gravity, still seeing double. In his mind's eye, her dress is purple and his father's voice is charming, he never missed a beat with her.

"It just happens to precede my arrival by a couple of decades," She counters.

Harvey scoffs, "Your arrival?"

She nods "Yes, the amazing, life changing day, you met me," she declares grandly.

He agrees but cannot agree, "Seriously?"

She puts one hand on her chest, mouth agape, the picture of over-dramatic outrage "Oh, I'm sorry, we just established I was prophesied."

"I never said that."

"I think you did."

"No, I didn't."

Donna straightens herself, crossing her legs and resting her hands on top of each other on her knee, she stares him down seriously "Your honor, I think the defendant is aiming for a perjury indictment."

Harvey snorts a laugh, surprised as she sparks to life the old routine, there's delight but also an ache to it as they flex muscles they haven't used for longer than he had realized, "I believe the prosecution is distorting the events," he rebuttals setting down his glass to focus.

Donna narrows her eyes, pretends to look down at imaginary papers and push up glasses she doesn't need, "Mr. Specter, do you deny the day you met me was life changing?"

Harvey rolls his eyes, "Really?" He whines.

"Plead the fifth?" She offers defiantly.

"Coward's move and you know it," he chastises.

"If the shoe fits," she says, reaching for her glass and taking a sip that does not break eye contact. He watches the glimmer of humor in her hazel eyes and only marginally remembers this is exactly what he was supposed to be avoiding.

"Whether you did or didn't is not the point, the point is I never _said it,_ " he argues smugly.

"Well, well," Donna starts, leaning back with poise and pride, resting her forearms on the arms of the chair and drumming her fingers on the edges reflexively, "I see we have lowered ourselves to technicalities. Cheap."

Harvey smiles, "As long as it gets results."

"No honor," she nods disapprovingly, though a laugh is edging behind her lips.

It is something else he has not seen in a while, this specific expression, he wonders if they really have been fading or if he just hasn't been paying attention. Which reminds him.

"My father did write a song for you," he blurts out.

Donna lets the laugh fly, he has heard it plenty but it is still welcoming warm familiarity, "No, he didn't," She tells him like it is sure and obvious, like he has had too much to drink.

"He did," Harvey insists, wondering how he could forget, though maybe he is stretching the truth, "He kinda did," He corrects himself.

Donna raises an eyebrow, sustaining her suspicion "Kinda?"

"He never recorded it. It was a draft," he reveals, "He said he got inspired out of the blue one day," Harvey sinks into the memory, he himself only heard it once.

It was at his father's apartment during a damp New York summer afternoon and they had run out of other things to talk about. Gordon hesitated to play him the song, kept explaining himself. Harvey mostly thought it was funny, "He asked me not to tell you," He hadn't and then it had never come up again, "I'm sorry, I forgot," he apologizes and turns to find her eyes, they're glossed over with unshed tears. He blinks and realizes so were his when wet warmth rolls down his cheeks.

"Did he write it down?" It moves the very ground he stands on that that is the first thing she asks, that she misses his father too.

It hurts all the more to have to answer, "If he did, I never found it."

She sighs, "If you do, it's mine," assertive but kind.

He sees the purple dress again and bright red hair cascading over it as she throws her head back to laugh at Gordon's blunt flirting, "Of course," he whispers so gravely it feels more binding than any contract. He could not deny her most things, much less this.

Donna nods, takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, "You really killed the casual mood," she jabs.

Harvey smiles, shakes his head, "Sorry."

"It's okay, I wanted to know, I just wish you hadn't done the job halfway," she says it between a smile, it is a joke, an absolution, but he can see the edge of disappointment in her eyes. He cannot read them as perfectly but that is a look he has always been afraid of and paradoxically only grown more familiar with. He needs to dissolve her ache.

"Hey," he whispers, reaching for one of her hands and stopping short of touching, they have kissed and hugged but he doesn't know where they draw this new line, if meaning it too much violates its borders, "I am sorry," he tells it from his core and watches her drink it into hers.

"It's okay," she answers, her fingers tremble, itching to bridge the gap between them, instead she recoils not wanting the blame for breaking them again just for trying to inch closer, "It's okay."

They are too tangled, metaphorically, sometimes he wonders if he can even shake her off without hollowing himself out, wonders if she feels the same. He is selfish enough to wish she does, it would mean some kind of barrier from the searing pain of being left. He is selfless enough to also wish she doesn't for a chance to never hurt her again with his careless needs.

He should not be thinking about any of that, "We finished the bottle," he points out flatly, stealing a glance at the half inch of scotch left inside the glass.

She follows his gaze, "We _almost_ did," Donna says and reaches for the neck, downs the rest in one gulp, "There, now it's done," He watches with bemused surprise as she sets the empty Macallan back on his centre table, turns it between her fingers to ponder the label, "At least it was just a 12 year."

"You say that like it makes us less drunk," he remarks, covering her hand on the bottle with his without thinking, without pretense, just to turn it to him so he can also read. Hers falls away a second later, he wonders if it means she is afraid to touch him now, hopes not.

"It doesn't," she agrees, "I think I'm tired," she says and points it with a yawn.

"You think?" Harvey smiles affectionately, "Are you brewing a hangover?" He asks, mildly worried. He knows scotch can upset her stomach and that she hates to vomit, he also knows she has some secret hangover cure she never told him about because it would 'encourage his bad habits'. How the tables have turned; he is barely dizzy.

"Are you asking that as my boss or my friend?" She interrogates, side eyeing him suspiciously.

"Both," because he is both, needs her there tomorrow morning but also cares if she will be miserable the entire night.

"I'll be late, but I'll be fine," she bargains.

His eyebrows knight together, "You don't have to come in," the complacency is immediate, so much for thinking he can accept her misery.

One corner of her lips pulls up, she wants to say that is not the business-wise decision "I'll be here," she reassures him instead. She is a little disappointed in herself for being so averse to letting him down even in small ways.

Donna smoothes out the skirt of her dress and stands on surer legs than the half bottle she drank would have anyone guess.

"Already? Lightweight," He teases, sneaking a glance at his watch, a quarter to midnight.

"I thought you had to be home an hour ago," She bites back, the implication is a double-edged sword, reminds him he has someone waiting; reminds her that she does not.

Harvey presses his lips together and watches his hands intently. She sighs, taking pity on him, like always.

"Sorry, I need Advil," she breathes out tiredly.

He nods, "You're right," he says without meeting her eyes, "Good night."

Donna considers him, them. She is tired and dizzy and has a headache brewing behind her eyes; it is not her job to heal him, it never really was, "You know, I was wondering," She starts and waits until he looks at her again, "Would I make a good lawyer?" a hand outstretched, it _isn't_ her job, she volunteers to save him.

Harvey allows himself a small smile, "Thinking about going to law school?"

She scoffs, "God no."

His eyebrows shoot up,"Excuse me?"

She rolls her eyes, "You know what I mean."

He does. He takes a pause to think on it "You wouldn't," he answers earnestly.

She is mildly surprised; Donna narrows her eyes at him, "Not smart enough?" As if, she is fishing and he knows it, she wants him to know it.

Harvey snorts a laugh, "You'd overachieve I'm sure," it is what she wanted to hear, the expected, but he isn't done "Too good," He adds, "You're... too good," he admits softly, with candid admiration.

Her breath hitches, he can do that sometimes, when it's almost midnight and he knows she will do him the courtesy of not bringing it up in the morning.

"You're a good person, Harvey," their lives might be easier if she could not read him so fluently.

He presses his lips together and shifts his eyes to the floor, index anxiously thrumming the glass still in his hand, "Not always," he made a lot of mistakes, can't tell which one is knocking on his conscience the loudest right now, "Not like you."

"Well," she starts good-naturedly, "Nobody is like me," Donna brags jokingly.

Harvey smiles and shakes his head "I'll drink to that," he announces and empties his tumbler.

She watches and sighs, feeling the prickle of the headache intensify, " _Now_ it's good night."

He nods, "It is," he agrees without looking.

She can feel his thoughts, his regrets, makes it hard to detach, "Are you okay enough to remember your address?" She teases, hanging back, a subtle way to ask if he is okay.

He snorts, "Sharp as a razor, I just..." he lingers, deciding if he wants to keep her "I think I'll listen to a few more," He admits, "Since nobody else will from now on."

He hardly ever makes it easy on her.

Donna sighs, crossing his office to pour herself a glass of water. She takes a pill from her bag next to it and swallows it down with one sip, then moves to the window where the records are stacked and lifts two of her favorites, "Which one?"

Harvey almost offers her an out, but there is no point in pretending he does not still need her there, that he didn't choose the words to make her stay "Left," he picks and shifts on his seat, reaching for it.

She pulls the vinyl off the sleeve and hands it to him, waits until he gently trades the one on the record player for it before going back to her seat. Once she's settled Harvey lets the needle drop and his office fills with his father's music.

"I miss him," he whispers like he is trying to hide the confession in between the notes.

Donna closes her eyes, leans her head back until she's facing the ceiling and breathes it in, "I know," she answers.

They don't speak again except to mumble simple goodbyes an hour later, giving life permission to go on unhinged at dawn.

Being understood is enough.


End file.
